EPK – Gamerra – Tedium (2023)

Tedium: The result of a very quick burst of inspiration. Dark moments in our own lives brought out the music and lyrics present in this EP.

Track By Track:
-Tedium: The Title track of the EP. A fast, short, easily consumable Thrash song with interesting twists. The lyrics reflect my mindset at the time that I wrote it. I hated my job, I felt lost, and I felt like I wasn’t going anywhere. The song is about the repetitive and grinding nature of everyday life. Life in itself felt tedious, hence the name “Tedium.”

-Cryogenesis: Home to some of the most dissonant and cold riffs I have ever written. Super fast and intense at most parts, but long and spacy at some parts. Varied sounds across the whole track. My favorite lyrics on the EP are on this song. The song is based on the concept that on this planet, there is ice that has remained frozen for eons. Some of it has remained frozen for a couple million years. Within that ice are microbes that haven’t been released since they were frozen. So basically, there are bacteria and various pathogens that no current living creature on this planet has immunity to. So, if these ices were to melt completely like the current melting rate would suggest, these pathogens would undoubtedly get out and do untold damage to Earth’s current ecology. So this song is kind of science fiction in that it slightly exaggerates the effects, but it is completely rooted in reality.

Scientists would go into the melt sights and accidentally release these pathogens into the world’s population, at least according to the song.

-Vicariously Experienced: Probably, objectively the best song on the EP. It came out better than we expected. A good mix of chunky groove, and the melodic, progressive elements we’ve folded into our sound over the years. I even added a little bit of Goatwhore influence a little before the solo. The song is about watching people you care about make bad decisions and ruin their lives in the process, then using those observations to craft yourself into a better individual as you grow up. This is a concept the three of us in the band are very familiar with.

-Suspended Animation: The only instrumental track on the EP. Very inspired by the melodic side of Revocation. Short and Sweet.

-Obsessively Aware: The long, epic song of this release. I wanted to really bring out my prog side with this one. Much of the beginning of the song is very much an ode to old-school Meshuggah. Think Contradictions Collapse, None, and Destroy Erase Improve. The majority of the rest of it is a serious nod to our love of Revocation and Death. A lot of dissonant, weird timing bits for all the Progressive Death Metal nerds to sink their teeth into. At 10 and a half minutes, this song is a wild ride. Lyrically the song is about my mind when I’m put into stressful situations like meeting band deadlines or being the only manager on duty on a Sunday with a crap load of people in the store and things are going wrong left and right. I’m a pretty high-strung person, so it kinda feels like I’m losing my mind when situations like that arise, despite my external demeanor seeming to not show it.

-Nefarious Entities: The only collaborative musical effort on the EP. Reece wrote the majority of this one and I brought in a handful of riffs to round out the structure. A lot of crazy stuff on this one. A true culmination of our influences. There are Exodus sounding parts, Revocation sounding parts, Death sounding parts. There’s even a Suffocation part Reece threw in at the end. Lyrically, most people would mistakenly label it as political. While there are political jabs thrown in, the song has more to do with the structure of rule in the world. What most people don’t understand is that most of what we’re told is a lie and the people we’ve been led to believe control the country are actually just puppets. Most people say it’s the politicians holding us down. A fewer, more accurate group say it’s the corporations. In reality, these sentiments are both simultaneously true and untrue. The people who really control the world as we know it use these two entities as attack pieces on a chess board. It’s the world’s royal families, the Vatican, and the dynasties left over from the monopoly holders back in the early 1900s that really pull the strings and put us in this position. They hold the corporations in their hands, the corporations hold the governments of the world in their hands, the governments hold the militaries and police, so on and so forth. Most bands would use this as a rallying cry for a government overthrow. Not us. We take a more realistic view. This will likely never change, so we might as well stop watching the news and keep to ourselves, writing music about it instead. That’s what the final track on Tedium is really about.

STORY ANGLES / FUN FACTS ABOUT THE BAND

1.  I had to play drums for a couple shows because our drummer quit after we booked the shows, and we don’t like to cancel. This included when we opened for Insomnium.

2.  Jake’s first show ever was when we opened for Goatwhore.

3.  Jake’s second show ever was when we opened for Warbringer.

4.  My dad once did a backflip in the mosh pit of one of our shows from the impact.

5.  Reece jumped off the stage on the last show of our Southeast Louisiana Mini Tour and messed his knee up pretty badly and he finished the set laying down on the stage. I was concerned, but he said keep going.